I've been wondering for a while why no one was responding to anything I was putting on reddit- I was putting different questions into niche community groups and was very shocked to see that no one was interacting.
Today I learned that I had actually been shadowbanned from reddit for some reason. For those of you who don't know, that essentially means that I had been banned from participating in conversation by creating posts or comments, but I had no idea that was the case since on my end it looked like everything was posted and visible to the public. They don't give you a reason though, but since I mostly lurked and the only thing I ever did post wise was try to ask some questions in various hobby groups, I have no idea why I was chosen for a ban.
To say I am angry at reddit is an absolute understatement. I will never darken the doorframe of that platform again, and I am so thankful that we have this platform with much more liberty to converse and contribute to our little communities on the internet.
Thank you all for being here and making the internet a place where open discussions can be held between everyone again.
Maybe I dreamt it, but I vaguely remember them saying that shadowbans were made for bots, and humans were not supposed to get them, and if they did, it was because automod thought their activity looked like a bot.
I don't know if it was not actually the case, or if they changed it's intention later.
Kind of like the tasers and flashballs, once you give people the tools, they're tempted to use them.